Which movie(s) do you think has the best soundtrack?
I think American Psycho has a good soundtrack and I listen to it occasionaly.
Tron Legacy, but that’s cheating as it’s essentially a Daft Punk music video.
The grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then. One day. I got in…
and then it BEAMS
The Game has changed, Son of Flynn!
But to be honest: Its a good music video
Sadly not a good movie, though.
One of my favorite
The Matrix
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Forest Gump+1 for The Matrix. I once watched the film at a theater where the music was played live by an orchestra. One of my favorite movie experiences of all time. The soundtrack is incredible.
O Brother is great for some classic folk.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (personally, At World’s End has the best, Hans Zimmer)
- The Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore)
- Gravity (Steven Price)
- Tron Legacy (Daft Punk)
- Moonlight (Nicholas Britell)
- Harry Potter (can only speak to the ones by John Williams)
- Braveheart (James Horner)
- The Matrix (Don Davis)
- Interstellar
- Jaws
- Smokey and the Bandit
- The Way
More general answer than you expected, but…
I really like when the sound design in movies makes sense - it “plays” in radio, gramophone…
For example “Black hole sun” cover in first episode of Westworld is just brilliant and caught me off guard (I didn’t know what it is about).
The adjective for this type of music is “diegetic”. That’s sound which is occurring and audible in-universe, not just to the audience.
My favourite example of this is in Grosse Point Blank, when the GNR cover of Live and Let Die is playing non-diagetically, right until the moment Martin walks into the store, and suddenly a cheesy muzak version of it is playing over the shop radio. It’s beautifully done :-)
TIL, thanks.
Haven’t watched it yet, but I love Black Hole Sun. I’ll definately check it out
If you don’t know anything about Westworld - don’t read reviews…
The mindfuck from the first season is worth it when you go blind in to it. The soundtrack is making the vibe of it even more disturbing/disorienting.
Birdman. Just drums. Really fucking good drums. Also they appear in the middle of one scene in an excellent way.
Also: not a movie, but Cowboy Bebop. Lots and lots of great tracks.
Once upon a time the west. (Ennio Morricone)
Blade runner (Vangelis)
The Lord of the Rings
This is Howard Shore’s Magnum opus. It’s what distinguishes this movie as more than just a great adaptation. His use of themes to represent not only races and kingdoms but characters, objects (like the One Ring, of course), and even concepts is a level above most movie soundtracks. There are even elements of storytelling through the music!
For example, the first time we hear the theme for Gondor is when Boromir is in Rivendell. Since he’s more or less alone, the theme is played by a single French Horn in a somber (almost tragic) style. In Return of the King, we see Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor, in all its glory, and so the full orchestra plays the theme.
One more: As the Fellowship begins to break down, so too does the theme. We go from heroic phrases to shorter, interrupted instances. There’s a book about the soundtrack written by Doug Adams. I highly recommend it if you’re interested!
The Blues Brothers - it’s stringing together performances from famous musicians, and the soundtrack was successful as an album in its own right.
I know you said movies, but a soundtrack for a show I’m hooked on currently is Legion (FX/Marvel, on Hulu). The whole entire show has an amazing cast to begin with, but Jeff Russo (Fargo, Star Trek Discovery, more) and Noah Hawley put together one hell of a score. I highly recommend it and the show.
Since you’ve broadened it out to TV, I’ll use that as an excuse and mention that I think Nicholas Britell’s score for Andor is pretty cracking too.
Could not agree more, Legion has an absolutely amazing score/soundtrack. The Bolero scene? Legendary.
- Spawn
- Baby Driver
- Garden State
- the Lord of the Rings trilogy
+1 for Spawn. Such a great soundtrack for a such bad movie.
Yes, spawn. Amazing.
Can’t believe no-one mentioned The Crow…
It can’t rain all the time.
Dazed and Confused
A few not listed:
- The Crow
- Empire Records
- Leaving Las Vegas
- Get Shorty
- Grosse Pointe Blank
Pulp Fiction(listed elsewhere)
I am quite fond of the recent Dune movies’ soundtrack. Hans Zimmer can make a good bwowwwum, and a helping of One-Woman-Wailing :tm: also helps
Aside for that I would get into movie musical territory. A much derided subgenre that I adore.
For anyone who didn’t see it, he did an interview about why and how it sounds like that.
The scene with all the bagpipes (not sure if it was the first or second movie) was badass. Up there with Mad Max guitar guy for cool film uses of instruments.
I’m going to reframe this as who I think the best composers are:
Bernard Hermann, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, etc.
John Williams, E.T., Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.
Akira Ifukube, most of the Shōwa era Godzilla movies
Shiro Shigasu, Evangelion, Shin Godzilla
As far as new work, I’m partial to Scott Stafford on Ultraman Rising. It came out on Netflix this past June and I was really surprised how good that movie and soundtrack were.
